'Sideways' director to attend Dryden re-opening

The Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House will host Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne to celebrate the theater’s re-opening after a two-month renovation.

The theater will reopen March 2 after being closed for two months while its interior underwent extensive renovations and enhancements. New features within the theater include enhanced ceiling and aisle lighting, new seats and carpeting, more leg room, a new screen and digital projection.

The theater’s original seats were sold to the public in January and are being replaced with larger ones. Its Barco digital projector will also allow the theater to present contemporary cinema through digital media, George Eastman House officials said.

"The Dryden Theatre is more than a movie theater," said Paolo Cherchi Usai, senior curator of motion pictures. "It is the exhibition gallery for the art of cinema as seen, interpreted, and explained by George Eastman House. We want the Dryden Theatre to be a state-of-the-art exhibition venue for the museum and a place where cinema, as an event, finds its most perfect manifestation."